Many people collect vintage appliances, and these are just a few items that are now quite collectible. Enjoy!

Binatone Stereomate Personal Stereo

Binatone are still going today, of course, and this late seventies contraption represents their answer to the ubiquitous Sony Walkman. It's a pretty blatant rip-off, with the plastic case using exactly the same colours of plastic as the first-generation Sony machine, but it's about four times the size! It in fact came with a strap so that it could be hung from the shoulder, and to all intents and purposes resembles a mutant car stereo. It also features a couple of blatant design flaws - there's an easily knocked speaker button, which allows you to blast other people with your music without you even knowing, and the top loading design allows it to be filled with water if you wear it while it rains... so perhaps it's surprising that this example still works!

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Dansette Radio Alarm Clock

Dansette were best known for their wobbly record players of course, but this digital-analogue radio alarm clock must have been a pretty late product for them, as this design dates from the turn of the 70s. It's Korean made, by the once-great Rank Organisation, who were once responsible for everything from films to motorway service stations. This model was also sold under the Bush and Murphy brand names, which were almost identical to this one, but with differently coloured cases.

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Goblin Purifyre Fan Heater

Goblin's most famous product is undoubtedly their iconic Teasmade, but the company produced a variety of different appliances, including this electric fan heater. The white plastic and rubber trim, plus the passing resemblance to a television set suggests that this was a late 1950s confection, and it gets its name from the four carbon filters that surround the air intakes of the fan. This machine was intended to be dual-purpose - as well as being intended for use as a standard fan heater, it was also designed to be used for drying laundry, in the days before the tumble dryer caught on - hence the two speed fan.

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HMV Cavendish Fan Heater

Although this little fan heater dates from the late 1940s, it still manages to have had very high survival rates - there are normally several of these on Ebay at any one time! It's pretty basic, with a single speed fan, but runs very quietly indeed. A nice touch is the orange lightbulb inside it, which adds a nice warm glow when switched on. I had to replace the knackered flex when I got it, but it runs like new.

I think this one bar electric fire might just be pre-ww2, perhaps as a baby version of the better known Bruton model, which dates from 1939. It has apparently been rewired, and was bought from a fairly well-known memorabilia stall in the Snoopers Paradise market in Brighton, but I find electric fire to be particularly unnerving appliances, so I haven't plugged it in yet! I now have two examples of these, one of which came with the original instruction card, which I'll scan down in due course.

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HMV HD1 Hairdryer

This hairdryer can be precisely dated, as it still has its guarantee dated 23rd December 1949, so was apparently a bit of a last-minute christmas present for someone! Designed by Christian Barman, with a unique, if slightly peculiar design. Note that it's the same colour as the Cavendish fan heater above - HMV produced a variety of appliances in this shade between the 30s and the 50s.

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HMV Lincoln Electric Fire

Another HMV electric fire, this time it's a two bar Lincoln model from 1955. You can see the obvious lineage from the Ely model above, but this one has chromed fins, the idea being that they helped to distribute the heat more effectively than the parabolic shape of the fire alone. A car boot sale find, this heater is in need of rewiring if I wanted to use it, but i'm quite happy for it to just sit there and look dramatic! Just a shame that it's so battered, but those fins are pretty vulnerable to knocks.

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HMV Maddox Kettle

After World War Two was over, HMV introduced two very distinctive kettles to the market - this one, and the slightly more conventional Bentick model. This Maddox model is very interesting, as it uses the 'jug' principle, which didn't become widespread, despite its advantages, until the 1980s. Like all kettles of this period, the Maddox did not shut off automatically - if it boiled dry, a pre-loaded spring ejected the lead from its socket, which was fine so long as it didn't land in a sink full of water...

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HMV Radio Alarm Clock

The radio alarm clock was pioneered by Goblin, with their massive Timespot model in the late 1940s. This HMV, which dates from about a decade later is a lot more compact, and has features that are both familiar and unusual to the modern consumer - it has the equivalent of a 'snooze' button (except that it's actually a dial marked 'slumber'), but also feature a socket at the back to plug a kettle into! This example is in pretty good condition, but I don't know if it works or not, as all three wires in the lead are covered in brown plastic insulation, so lord only knows which one is meant to go where...

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Philips HK4100 Hairdryer

In classic 'Space Age home Appliance' style is the Philips HK4100 hairdryer, which dates from 1965. Breaking from the more traditional 'pistol' shape, this hairdryer featured a futuristic geometric design, in an equally striking box. An interesting feature is the diffuser, operated by twisting the green nozzle to open extra vents on the front of the dryer.

The Philishave is another design icon, and many versions have been produced over the years - this particular version dating from 1959. This is actually one of the few vintage appliances that I own that gets regular use - yep, it's my everyday shaver! And it works fine too. It did have me worried a while ago, as it started cutting out for no reason whilst it was in use. I wasn't happy, as it would mean trying to find another shaver for £1.50(!), but I eventually found out that the problem wasn't the little shaver - it was the wiring in my house...

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Pifco Foot Massager

As the 1950s progressed, and more and more people got used to appliances in the home, more frivolous items like this Pifco electric foot massager started to become popular, which seems to be a bit of a forerunner to the Clairol foot spa of the 1970s, but without the capacity to soak one's feet at the same time. In principle, this little gadget is a pretty good idea. However, it is extremely noisy in operation, and doesn't half drown out the telly!

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Pifco Princess Hairdryer

Pifco were once one of the most ubiquitous small appliance manufacturers in the United Kingdom, and this is an example of their Princess hairdryer, which dates from any time between the mid '50s and the mid '70s. This particular one comes with the complete hairdrying ensemble, including a stand, hose, comb attachment and one of those quaint hoods, suitable for setting towering bouffant hairdos into shape. A charity shop find, this little dryer is very quiet in operation, but does not have a very powerful fan, so dries rather slowly, if gently. Someone once commented to me that this must have been the bloke's version, as it came in blue plastic rather than the more usual pink. And maybe it was! Inspiring Pifco to come up with the next appliance...

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Pifco Ranger 'Hairdrying Gun'

One for the fellas! Dating from around 1972, this was Pifco's attempt to crack the embryonic male vanity market. Made in dark green plastic, and in a simulated wood cardboard box(!), this looks more like a Scalextric trigger than a hairdryer. And did Pifco succeed in this early example of niche marketing? Well, have you ever seen one of these before? I rest my case.

This kettle, dating from the early 1950s, was the first kettle that switched off automatically when the water boiled - up until this appliance was introduced, kettles had either fuses or spring-loaded ejectors should they boil dry, but the K1 was the first that you could switch on, and then carry on with what you were doing, knowing that it didn't need watching. This was found at Brighton Station Sunday car-boot sale, for a fiver, along with the HMV Lincoln electric fire above, but the lead is missing, so I don't yet know if it actually works or not.

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Ronson Supertrim Shaver

This is a pretty typical 1950s electric shaver, and also one of the items that has been in my collection for the longest, although it doesn't work anymore. Which is just as well really, as the cutting foil is extremely thick compared to modern equivalents, and it had a habit of yanking hair out instead of cutting it... very painful.

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Sony Trinitron 1320 Colour Television

Another Japanese import, this Sony television was one of the the first sets to really kick off the cult of good quality Eastern goods in Great Britain. This set dates from around 1971, and is unusual in that it converts the PAL colour signal into the NTSC standard for the screen, hence colour tends to go a bit peculiar sometimes, and the picture has a distinct purpley tint. It also pioneered the single electron gun for a colour set - most other manufacturers built more complicated (and less reliable) three-gun sets at the time. And for a television to still work almost perfectly after 30 years as this one does is a pretty impressive achievement.

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Swan Siren Kettle

The design of this Swan Siren electric kettle dates from the mid 1950s, although this example is dated as being manufactured in April 1969. although not automatic like the Russell Hobbs K1 below, the spout lid features a whistle to warn you of when the kettle has boiled, It also fills from the spout (the cover lifting off via a lever on the handle), and you can't see inside the water chamber, so when I first got it, it was boiled several times, in case there was a dead rat in it or something! No little bones have fallen out yet though, so I think I'm safe. It has a 3KW element, and so boils very quickly.

The Goblin Teasmade is a true cult appliance! Many people regard them as a bit of a joke, and it has to be said that there is something peculiarly British about an alarm clock that wakes you up with a cup of tea...

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The first ever Teasmade, a Heath Robinsonish affair using a spring loaded match(!) and a spirit lamp was invented in 1902, by a Frank Clarke, who was, of all things, a gunsmith. But it was not until 1932 that Goblin produced their prototype electric Teasmade. The Goblin company had been founded by Hubert Booth, the inventor of the vacuum cleaner, in 1901, under the name of The British Vacuum Cleaner Company. The company later adopted Goblin as a less wordy brand name, although it was still to all extents and purposes known as B.V.C.

Teasmades entered production in 1933 with the D21, a distinctly art deco machine made out of wood. It proved popular, and after world war two, was replaced by the similarly deco-styled D25, although this model was produced in urea plastic. The Teasmade sold well,although it cost more than an alram clock and kettle together, but as the 1970s dawned, the humble teasmade was started to be looked upon as an anachronistic contraption for middle aged couples.

The final Teasmade goblin introduced was the mid-70s 870, illustrated on this page.

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This was significant in that it was the first radio Teasmade, as all previous models had a rather irritating buzzer. Unfortunately, the high retail price and the unfavourable image of the Teasmade led to Goblin being split up and sold off in 1983 to Swan BSR. Swan continued making Teasmades, but was sold to the Littlewoods group in 2001, which might spell an end to this great appliance.

Nowadays, vintage Teasmades have been known to command rather high prices, but as a veteran of several models, I have to say that the 870 is the best of the lot. This is for the simple reason that the radio is a lot more pleasant to wake up to than the buzzer of all the other models, and these later machines boil a lot more quietly as well - the cacophony of the kettle mechanism of earlier models usually wakes you up long before the buzzer does!

The bakelite Ekco radio is an iconic piece of 1930s design. A variety of different models were built throughout the decade, all of which are collectable. These sets represent some of the most advanced radio design of the era, but remarkably, the bakelite sets were actually produced as a cheaper alternative to the more ubiquitous wooden-bodied models.

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Before Ekco started to produce these sets, bakelite was still a rather embryonic product. Having been invented in 1909 in by Dr. Leo Bakeland, this early plastic had seen use in small products, such as jewellery and small insulated electrical components, but the Ekco sets that used this material pioneered the use of the material in such large forms. Nowadays, where large plastic items are commonplace, such a feat may seem unremarkable, but this application of plastics technology was unprecedented at the time.

The roots of these sets dates back to the turn of the 1930s, when E. K. Cole, a company that had only been making sets for a short time, took the decision to experiment with plastic-bodied sets to free themselves from the labour-intensive process of having to construct or order wooden bodies for their sets, which represented a large portion of the manufacturing cost of the devices. The earliest of these sets looked little different to the predominant wooden sets of the era, but as manufacture continued, the unique properties of plastic were increasingly utilised in their design, which led to sets whose appearance would have been impossible to recreate in natural materials.

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By 1934, Ekco was soliciting leading designers and architects of the day, challenging them to produce new forms for their radio sets using bakelite, and two of the most notable were Wells Coates (responsible for Embassy Court) and Serge Chermayeff, who worked on the De La Warr Pavilion, as well as the radio set on this page, the Ekco ADT 95. This set, whilst not as flamboyant as the circular sets styled by Wells Coates, is still a distinctive machine.

The gentle curves of the bakelite casing is reminiscent of contemporary modern architecture, with few hard angles anywhere on the set. The fragile nature of the bakelite is strengthened with wooden reinforcing panels on the inside of the cabinet, needed as the internal workings of this set are so heavy. Incidentally, this set was marketed as being "transportable" - the built in aerial meant that it could be used anywhere in the home with a power point. It is not portable in the modern sense though, due to the weight and bulk of the machine. As the aerial was not adjustable from the outside, the whole set is mounted on a smoothly operating turntable, so that the set could be rotated in order to receive the strongest signal possible.

Ekco's moment of glory was short-lived however, with few of their post-war sets being as collectable as these 1930s models, and the company name had vanished from electronic equipment by the 1970s. But the bakelite sets are strongly indicative of their period, and very desirable today.

The Kenwood Chef is one of the most incredibly versatile kitchen machines of all time, and also one of the most long-lived of brands. The Chef was introduced in 1948 as the A700, and the main selling point was the range of add-on attachments that the consumer could buy for it. Different attachments have come and gone over the years, and have varied from the ever-popular liquidiser and coffee grinder, to can openers, sausage makers, potato peelers and pasta makers. from the start, the Chef had four separate outlets driven from the motor, with a high-speed one at the rear, two slower ones at the front and top, and one for the beaters underneath. Coupled with eight speeds, this made the Chef an ultra flexible piece of machinery.

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The design proved successful, although it was criticised for having an overtly mechanical appearance. This was rectified in 1960, when, inspired by the clean lines of a similar but less versatile mixer by Braun, the Chef was given a comprehensive restyle by Kenneth Grange, and became the A701, the machine you see on this page. All subsequent Chefs had styling based on this model, and indeed, apart from the introduction of electronic speed control in 1976, and various mild facelifts over the years, the Chef of today is little different in spirit to the 1948 model. It has always been a luxury item, with the basic machine retailing at around £300 today, but they are available secondhand for as little as £10, and as is the case with so many appliances, the older ones have a sturdiness that seems lacking in the more modern equivalents.

Russell Hobbs pioneered the automatic electric kettle in 1950s Great Britain. Much safer than previous electric kettles, as it could be left unattended without the risk of it boiling dry and overheating.

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Before this kettle was introduced in 1955, boiling water by electricity could be a hazardous affair. Not only did some early electric kettles boil the water by making it live, if the kettle was not switched off in time, it could boil dry, which at best would wreck the kettle, and at worst could cause a fire. Later on, manufacturers introduced a variety of fail-safe methods to prevent this from happening. some kettles had replaceable fuses, whilst others had spring-loaded ejectors. These too could be hazardous, especially if the ejector propelled the kettle lead into the sink...

This situation carried on until the 1950s, some time after toasters and irons had been automated with their heat controls. The kettle that changed all this was the 1956 Russell Hobbs K1. At the rear of the appliance was a bimetallic strip, and when water boiled, steam was forced through an aperture in the lid to the strip, which knocked the switch off. It was simple but ingenious, and the standard K1 lasted until 1960, when it was replaced by the very similar K2.

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This is the machine on this page, an early example with a two-pin lead socket, earthed against the rim. Naturally, the automatic Russell Hobbs proved a great success, and the K2 remained in production until the late 1970s. Even today, a quarter of a century after it was replaced by the more contemporary looking K3, examples of the K1 and K2 can be found in regular domestic use, proving it not only to be a highly popular design, but a most durable one as well.

Although this little fan heater dates from the late 1940s, it still manages to have had very high survival rates - there are normally several of these on Ebay at any one time! It's pretty basic, with a single speed fan, but runs very quietly indeed. A nice touch is the orange lightbulb inside it, which adds a nice warm glow when switched on. I had to replace the knackered flex when I got it, but it runs like new.

The guy is a little odd but he's reasonable, I REALLY want the green convertible in is display but he wont sell it >:( But I need to go back and get some part and work on him selling a little more :boggleeye:

I have rebuilt several similar models Stu, but from the 50's. Ones in bronze hammerite colour / chrome and square, mine had the old rubber mains cables, with red, black and green cables which were rotten.main bearings on motor are usually seized, with half an inch of muck inside main body. manage to get them all working followed with insulation / earth bond test.The rear of the enclosure is almost identical to the ones i did, but they had a plate covering the rear and obviously holes for the air flow. probably still in service today.

Looked at it today, the heating elements all fire up, but the fan is seized solid as you said. I've left it in our workshop to be done tomorrow. :icon_nod:

I've got about 30 of the later type (https://manchestervacs.co.uk/DysonForum/index.php/topic,2791.msg21832.html#msg21832), which we are slowly remanufacturing for resale. I fancied a chrome original though.

Tonight we are on old tapes! I have some old Alan (Fluff) Freeman and Jimmy Savile (Radio 1) radio shows on tape going on now... (the Jimmy Savile negative stuff does not alter the fact he did great radio back in the day and is part of music history - especially in Manchester [Belle Vue] dance halls.).

I should probably digitise them. I've done bits of radio over the years. I have much interesting vintage radio and lots of 60s jingles on tape from Nick Lowes in Woolacombe who I once met (if you knew Nick Lowes or 'The Nick Lowes Show', email us (https://manchestervacs.co.uk/contact)). Bits of me with James Whale in the 80s at Radio Aire, old Piccadilly 261 stuff from Manchester, Dave Ward, Phil Wood, Steve Penk (who we are still in touch with), Yorkshire Classic Gold, etc. I have some old shows from Radio 1 in the 80s with Jimmy Savile and Dignified Don on tape too.

Yes get them transferred to cd Stu, i am on with a cine projector soon, lady asked if i could transfer vhs to dvd, i said yes very easily... until i saw the condition of the tape spools. All white n furry looks like mold, but it isnt, its aluminium oxide, putting the tape into a machine and playing causes havoc with carriage and the heads, pic quality will be terrible.I did one recently just started to oxidise, had to clean heads and deck assembly 3 times but got there eventually. It was for a guy ex soldier with his falklands conflict vid.